Analysis: Mike
Wallace's pit-bull style made him a household name
His death not only
marks the passing of a newsman but also his tough style of journalism
Without him, 'there
probably wouldn't be a '60 Minutes,' CBS News chief says
Mike Wallace dies at
93;
'60 Minutes' pioneer
By Meg James, Los Angeles Times
April 9, 2012
The death of CBS News' pit-bull reporter Mike
Wallace marks not only the passing of a broadcast lion but in many ways also
the brand of journalism he helped to define.
Wallace, 93, died late Saturday at a care
center in New Canaan, Conn., where he had been staying for the last few years.
CBS plans an hourlong tribute to Wallace and his career on "60
Minutes" next Sunday.
In announcing his death, CBS lauded the brazen
tactics that it said had made Wallace a household name "synonymous with
the tough interview — a style he practically invented for television more than
half a century ago."
"All of us at CBS News and particularly
at '60 Minutes' owe so much to Mike," Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News and
a longtime executive producer of "60 Minutes," said in a statement
released Sunday.
"Without him and his iconic style, there
probably wouldn't be a '60 Minutes.' There simply hasn't been another broadcast
journalist with that much talent. It almost didn't matter what stories he was
covering, you just wanted to hear what he would ask next."
Wallace's most memorable interviews often made
headlines and stirred controversy.
During the Watergate years, he interrogated
such Nixon associates as John Ehrlichman, G. Gordon Liddy and H.R. Haldeman.
Wallace was at the center of one of the biggest libel suits ever for his 1982
"CBS Reports" investigation that alleged that Gen. William
Westmoreland, who commanded the U.S.
military in Vietnam,
had deceived the public by undercounting the enemy.
In 1995, Wallace interviewed Jeffrey Wigand, a
high-ranking tobacco executive turned whistle-blower, who said the industry
long had known that tobacco caused cancer. CBS initially sat on the explosive
story, but Wallace's interview aired on "60 Minutes" in 1996. (The
flap became the subject of the movie "The Insider.")
In 1998, Wallace's interview with Dr. Jack
Kevorkian sparked another controversy because it included video of Kevorkian
lethally injecting an ill patient.
In the early 1980s, Coors beer took out
newspaper ads that read: "The Four Most Dreaded Words in the English
Language: Mike Wallace Is Here."
Wallace's tenacious spirit and blistering
questions helped build "60 Minutes" into a ratings juggernaut as well
as establish the program as the gold standard for broadcast journalism.
Although down from its zenith three decades
ago, when some 40 million people would tune in on Sunday nights for the stories
that followed the familiar tick, tick, tick, the program has remained in the
top 10 of the Nielsen rankings for an unprecedented 23 seasons. (This season,
"60 Minutes" has been averaging 13.5 million viewers an episode.)
The durability of "60 Minutes"
proves that viewers continue to have an appetite for hard-hitting newscasts.
The program still thrives in an era when the format that inspired it — the
once-a-week newsmagazine — has lost relevance compared to the immediacy of the
Internet.
Across America, newsroom leaders are
struggling to redefine their magazines, newspapers and local TV and radio
newscasts. They are doing so amid dramatically shrinking resources and the
reality that readers and viewers probably have already seen or heard a snippet
of the news elsewhere.
Fewer news outlets are practicing the brand of
investigative journalism that Wallace and "60 Minutes" helped to
define. It is easier and cheaper for news outlets to turn to talking heads to
fill air time.
Not only are there fewer grillers such as
Wallace around, but the business executives and politicians who might be a
target of tough reporting can also more adeptly avoid the harsh glare these
days. There was a time when a person came across as suspicious or cowardly if
he or she failed to appear on "60 Minutes" or — worse yet — tried to
scurry away from Wallace and his intruding camera crew. But now, people can use
Twitter or Facebook to get their message out or turn to a sympathetic news
outlet, where the host will lob only softball questions.
Wallace, in contrast, honed his hard-hitting
interview style in the 1940s and 1950s on the ABC TV news program "The
Mike Wallace Interview." He also experimented on a local New York television guest show called
"Night Beat" before joining CBS News permanently in 1963.
"Wallace's relentless questioning of his
subjects proved to be a compelling alternative to the polite chitchat practiced
by early television hosts," CBS said in its statement. That led CBS News'
Don Hewitt to pick Wallace as a counterweight to the more measured Harry
Reasoner for the original reporting team on "60 Minutes."
Wallace's last TV appearance was in January
2008. His sit-down interview on "60 Minutes" with baseball pitching
great Roger Clemens, who stood accused of using steroids, made front-page news.
It was a fitting finale that served to underscore Wallace's legacy.
CBS strives to maintain its edge in hard-news
reporting. It promoted Scott Pelley as anchor of the "CBS Evening
News" last year, replacing Katie Couric. The network this year began a
revamp of its "CBS This Morning" program with the installation of
Charlie Rose, a pivot designed to inject a more serious tone into a genre that
has become increasingly soft. CBS News chief Fager has said he believes that
viewers still care about news with substance.
Wallace's passing might inspire others in the
news business to consider that too.